Reading this along was one of the things that "kicked" me off on discovering the "passageways" of the indigineous peoples of Central Ontario so I transcribed it from the following report [added my comments/notes with Italics.]
Taken from the 28th Annual Archaeological Report 1916 by Dr. Roland. B. Orr - Curator R.O.M.

[p26]
The Subject of primitive commerce is of special interest. It sheds much light upon the conditions of life among the perhistoric nomadic Indian tribes that occupied the Province of Ontario before the advent of Europeans. The fact that a very extensive trade was carried on, covering the entire continent north of Mexico, is easily proved. The non-perishable atrifacts of the far south were transported and are found in the kitchen middens of the north; those of the east are found in the west; and vice versa. Here, as in the Old World in ancient times, trade was simply an exchange of wares, one tribe producing or manufacturing that which another tribe required: and thus their wants or needs made traffic in those commodities very extensive. For a semi-civilized community, their wares were numerous, including corn, furs, robes, tobacco, wampum, mats, canoes; articles made of moose or buffalo hair, and of porcupine quills; cotton, bead baskets, pipes, weapons for warfare and for the chase; clay pots of all kinds; domestic utensils, and, in short, all sorts of the necessaries of life. With such merchandise a contiuous barter was mantained by the various tribes. Frequently, peacable trade gave place to the appropriation of the commodities a tribe possessed by the power of might: and distance did not in any way deter them. A band of Indians would readily traverse 1,500 miles to settle a difference with some hereditary foe, and, on their return, bring back with them all the loot they could conveniently carry. Consequently, in their kitchen middens are to be found artifacts which are the product of far distant tribes. As our attention is chiefly directed to the pre-Columbian manufactures, and the trade and transportation thereof, as well as to the distribution of those food-stuffs, artifacts, and raw materials over distant parts of the country, we recognize the fact that it is necessay to look closely into the Champlain period to get a full insight into their methods before Eastern traders influenced their procedure in trade.

The great trade routes of Ontario have not had the attention paid to them that their importance deserves.
Old Ontario has had her towns built on their village sites
[North Bay is a good example],
and their main thoroughfares were once Indian trails
[so was central Ontario - along the Ottawa and Mattawa River, south of Lakes Nosbonsing and Nipissing, etc.].
In New Ontario, however, it is otherwise: their trails and waterway have not been properly investigated.[This is something I wish to change at least in the Mattawa/Nipissing area -- most of the old anishnabik trails that I know which were overlaid by modern transportation routes colonization roads, railways, highways, etc.]
It is not easy, and is now perhaps too late, to get authentic accounts of the original trading methods of these primitive people, because these methods were so very quickly altered by contact and trade with a more civilized race
[particularly for metal implements]. [p27]

FOOD
Indian corn constitutes a very important factor in their early trade, not only between the various clans of a tribe, but also in intertribal exchanges with northern neighbours who were unable to grow it. J'ames Adair, in his "History of the North American Indians", mentions not only the varieties of corn grown, but also the methods used in preparing it for food. He states that there are three kinds of corn. The first is short and used for drying, the second is yellow and flinty, which they call hominy corn. The third is; the largest, of a very soft grain, and is termed bread corn: this, when in full ear,they half boil and dry, either by the sun, or over a, slow fire. They boil it also with venison or other meats. In July, when the chestnuts and corn are green and full grown, they half boil the former, and take off the rind ; and Avila sluiced the milky, swelled, long rows of the latter, the women pound it in a large wooden mortar, which is wide at the mouth, and gradually narrows to the bottom ; then they knead both together, wrap them up in green corn-blades of various sizes, about an inch thick, and boil them well, as they do all kinds of food. This sort of bread is very tempting to the taste, and reckoned most delicious to their strong palates. They have another sort of boiled bread, which is mixed with beans, or potatoes ; they put on the soft corn till it begins to boil, and pound it sufficiently fine ; their invention does not reach to the use of any kind of milk. When the flour is stirred, and dried by the heat of the sun or fire, they sift it with sieves of different sizes, curiously made of the coarser or finer cane-splinters(?). The thin cakes, mixed with bear's oil, were formerly baked on thin broad stones placed over a, fire, or on broad earthen bottoms fit for such use ; but now they use kettles. When they intend to bake great loaves, they make a strong blazing fire, with short, drv, split wood, on the hearth. When it is burnt down to coals, they carefully rake them off to each side, and sweep away the remaining ashes; then they put their well-kneaded broad loaf, first steeped in hot water, over the hearth, and an earthen basin above it, with the ember and coals a-top. This method of baking is as clean and efficacious as is possible in any oven, when they take it off, they wash the loaf with warm water, and it soon becomes firm and very white. It is likewise very wholesome, and well tasted, to any except the vitiated palate of an epicure.

No extensive trade was carried on in meats or other perishable food products. Berries were dried and stored and at times used in trade. Next to corn, probably the most largely used article of trade was pemmican, a food preparation extensively
used in the northern parts of the province, made by cutting the meat of the deer into thin slices and drying in the sun, or over the smoke of a slow fire. The thin slices were placed over a small pole ; this was suspended horizontally, and covered
with spruce boughs an opening being left at both ends. The fire was made on the windward side and the smoke passed through. When well smoked and dried, it was pounded fine between stones, and with this powder was incorporated one-third-part of melted fat. To this mixture dried fruit, such as choke or June berries, was sometimes added. The whole was then compressed into skin bags in which, if kept dry, it might be, preserved for years. Fish pemmican was also made by some of our northern tribes. In those pre-Cabotian days, when no coureur-de-bois or Dutch trader was known, articles such as these were extensively used in their commercial transactions.

TOBACCO
The tobacco plant, which was carefully dried by the Indians and kept as free from. moisture as possible, was put in bags of deerskin, or birch bark, or baskets, neatlv woven of roots and grasses. Largely grown as it was in Canada both by the
[p29]

Attiwanadrons, Petuns and Hurons, it necessarily follows it must have been an article extensively used in trade. The northern Algonquin
[Algongian speaking]
tribes were supplied from the extensive tobacco fields of Lambton, Kent and Simcoe counties.

LITHICS
Flint, which is found abundantly in large rounded modules in the cretaceous formations of England and France and has played such a very important part among the prehistoric races of Europe, does not occur iN this Province (or, in fact, on this Continent) . But Ontario is rich in various kinds of stone of a silicious character, which, which on account of their hardness and conchodidal fracture, were well adapted to fill the place of the missing variety. The term “Flint'' is, however, used in this country to include a very large number of stones used for the manufacture of of a variety of arrow-heads, spear points, knives and numerous other artifacts. Probably the most extensive flint factory in Ontario was that on the north shore of Lake Erie. From this place were transported bodies of half-worked flint (or chert) to the various artiasans of the different tribes, and by them made into the ariticles required. Then again, not only those manufactured at the original site, but the others partly finished, were carried long distances. Flint points made from Erie flint have been found as far as the banks of the Saskatchewan near Edmonton, and most of the Northern Algonquin [Algonkian speaking] tribes acquired their supply by trade with their southern neighbours. In this article alone, before contact with Europeans, a very extensive trade was carried on.

SLATE
In the commercial pursuits of the Indians, slate must have been a very important factor. We find it in general use by all the tribes north of Mexico, and the vast number of slate artifacts in the Ontario Provincial Museum attest to it's general use by all the tribes occupying territory within this Province. The fine grained, greenish and striped slate of the Middle Sates and Canada were very extensively employed in the manufacture of a great variety of objects of some problematic purpose, including banner stones, bird-shaped stones and perforated and sculpted tablets.

COPPER
By far, the most striking substance in the basin of Lake Superior, which had attracted the attention of the early inhabitants, was, evidently, the native copper, which exists so extensively in that quarter. This metal was found and mined in large quantities in Isle Royal, situated at the western end of Lake Surperior, in the Rainy River district. Early travellers speak of native copper being found in many parts of the continent. This evidently was glacial copper, carried down in those ages long past, about which we know so little, by means of glaciers, from these immense copper fields situated north-west of the Hudson Bay, on the Copper Mine river, where, according to Tyrrel, great boulders of native copper are to be found on the surface. It is found in the Lake Superior region also in situ, as part of the product of veins in the trap rock, and has been scattered abroad, by geological action, along with the erratic block and diluvian deposits. It is also foud to exist, to an uncommon extent, it its original positions along with ores, spars, and vein stones, in both which locations the Indians, who call it Red Iron, searched for it. They employed in making various ornaments, implements [32]

and instruments. Arm and wrist bands, pyramidal tubes, or dress oranaments, chisel and axes on in every instance were wrought out exlusively by mere hammering, and skilfully shaped without the use of the crucible or the art of soldering. Such is the condition of the manufactured article, as found in the gigantic Grave Creek Mound, and in the smaller mounds of the Scioto Valley, and in fact, wherever it has been scattered, in early days, through the medium of the ancient Indian exchanges. From the investigations into this subject, the area of the basin of Lake Superior must be regarded as the chief or primary point of this intermediate traffic in native copper; and, so far aw we know, it appears to have been in the hands of the Algonquin [Algonkian speaking] tribes; at least, those tribes were found here at the opening of the sixteenth century, when these portions, generally, of the [then] territories of New France were first visited. (Schoolcraft, Vol. I, page 66.)

Shells
Personal vanity is a prominent characteristic of the North American Indians and a substance so pleasing to the eye, and so easily worked, could not fail to attract the attention of these primitive peoples in the earliest times. The shells of marine and fresh-water molluscs are, above other natural productions, particularly suited to be made into ornaments; and it is not surprising they were used for this purpose in all parts of the world. These objects of trade were transported from the sea to the most distant points inland, and there they were exchanged for other articles of which the coast people were in want, such as hides, a red earth for painting their faces, chert for arrow-heads, hard reeds for the latter, tufts of deer's hair dyed a scarlet colour, which were worn. as head-dresses, besides many other products of their handicraft. Wampum in its various forms was extensively used in trade as money and the wampum made from the Gulf ·of Mexico and tlantic shells had been distributed north and west over most of the continent. Wampum
[p33] beads in the pre-European times were largely fashioned from wood painted and properly adorned, before Eastern methods of manufacture dawned upon them. Shell beads then. came to be more extensively made, and we find in the kitchen mliddens all over the western portion of the continent, the evidence of a very extensive trade carried on in these articles. In the neighbourhood of Lake Metad, Wentworth [now hamilton-wentworth] County, bushels of these beads have been found, all showing the evidence of European manufacture, and of being brought from Quebec and. New York, centuries before the white man made his home in this locality.

Loskiel makes the following statement in reference to wampum :-"Before North America was discovered by the Europeans, the Indians made their strings and belts mostly of small pieces of wood cut to all equal size, and dyed white and black. They made some of shells they highly esteemed, but they manufactured them very rarely, because this labour required much time for the want of the proper tools, and the beads, moreover, were of rude and clumsy appearance. Soon after their arrival in America, the Europeans began to manufacture wampum from shells, very neatly, and in abundance, exchanging it to the Indians for other commodities, thus carrying on a very profitable trade.” ( Loskiel Mission de Evangelischen Bruder, p.24)

Schoolcraft, in Vol. I, page 67, states that, in exchange for the native copper of Lake Superior, and for the blood-red pipe-stone of the Coteau des Praries west of the St. Peter's, they received certain admired species of the sea-shells of the Floridian coasts and West Indies, as well as some of the more elaborately and well-sculptured pipes of compact carbonate of lime, greywacke, clay, slate and serpentines, of which admirable specimens, in large quantities, have recently been found by researches made in the inverted-bowl-shaped, or sacrificial mounds of the Ohio valley, and in the ossuaries of the Lakes. The makers of these may also be supposed to have spread, northwardly, the various ornamented and artistic burnt-clay pipes of ancient forms and ornaments; and the ovate and circular beads, heart-shaped pendants, and ornamental gorgets, made from the conch (which has received the false name of ivory), or from fine bone and horn. The direction of this native exchange of articles appears to have taken a strong cuurnt down the line of the Great Lakes, by way of Lakes Erie and Ontario, along the coasts of the States of Ohio and New York, and into the Canadas. Specimens of the blood-red pipe-stone, wrought as a neck ornament, and of the coch bead pendants and gorgets, and of the antique short clay pipes, occur, in the ancient Indian burial grounds, as far east as Onondaga and Oswego, in New York and in the high country which abounds in such extraordinary sepulchral deposits of human bones and Indian ornaments, about Beverly, and the sources of the several small streams which pour their waters into Burlington Bay on the north Shore of Lake Ontario. At the latter place I obtained also speciment of pyroa perversa in an entire state. All these are deemed to be relics of the Ante-Cabotian period. It many be necessary, perhaps, hereafter, to except from this character the antiques, short, ornamented, clay pipes named.

Travel
The methods of travel were somewhat limited. On foot, they were fleet as an arrow; into the forest and traverse hundreds of miles arriving at his destination [p34]

[I have to wonder about horses but perhaps he was trying to cover the continent.]

with exactness. A Mississauga Indian, in early European times, could leave his camp where Toronto stands at present, and make his way in an almost straight line to where Godrich looks out of the expanse of Lake Huron. Their fleetness of foot in traversing the forest wilds of Ontario was a revelation to the European adventurer. As the contininent today is a network of railroads, so, in these prehistoric time, it was covered with well-recognized Indian trails leading in all directions from great tribal centres. In the county of Simcoe, the first settlers could point out to you the various trails leading from one village site to another; and this is also true of the territory occupied by the great Iroquois Confederacy in the State of New York.

Snowshoes
The most important articles to hasten travel during the long winters with deep snow, were the thong-woven shoes of the aborigines, used and manufactured oday just as they were centuries ago. In methods of making, they show an ingenuity, which, if the same brain energy had been exercised in other walks of life, might have caused the primitive Indian to have occupied a position amongst our semi-civilzed races of to-day. Mason, in describing the snowshoe, states that the parts are the wooden rim, toe and hell crossbar of wood or rawhide, extra strengthening bars, foot netting closely meshed with babiche or twisted sinew, and foot-lines for attaching the shoe. The varieties of their snowshoes were almost as great as their linguistic stocks. With these articles of footwear the Indians were enabled to travel great distances following their dog-sledges. During the winter hunts, there were of immense value and service; slipping stealthily over the snow, they are equalled by few and surpassed by none of the races the world over. The Indian on the sides of the Andes in South America, the Indian of Mexico or California, or his no less illustrious and fast running brother of Ontario, are all even to this day celebrated for their speed and endurance. These men have been utilized on both continents of America by the eastern races succeeding the, whenever long distances had to be covered in the shortest time, such as when carring the mails or express parcels. It is on a few years since those fleet runners in our Canadian west, with their dog-sledges, ditributed the mails from Fort Garry away west to the Roackies, and as far north as Athabasca Landing. Our own Algonquin Indians were celebrated travelers. They cover the continent from the Atlantic to the Rockies, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the headwaters of the Saskatchewan.

While their modes of transportation were not numerous, yet, for a semi-civilized race, they were of the highest order. No civilized or semi-civilized race the world over had ever produce anything to surpass the birchback canoes manufactured by the Algonquins, living in what is now Ontario. And throughout the bounds of this great Province, from the Ottawa to the headwater of the Lake of the Woods, and from Hudson Bay in far north to the world-renowned waterfalls of Niagara in the south. During the summer, in pre-French times, those water were dotted in many places with the various forms of canoes manufactured and utilized by the aborigines. Besides their canoes for speed travel, which carried on one or two passengers, they had their transportation canoes of great length and carrying capacity. These canoes are well described by the early missionary fathers, as seen by them when bringing their

[p37] huge cargoes of pelts down the Mattawa, Ottawa, and St. Lawrence as far as Quebec. They were adopted by the voyageurs of a later date, and became an import factor in earning dividends for the Hudson Bay Co. and it's great rival. “All this they do so easily,” says on of the missionaries, “through the skilful use and great convenience of canoes, which are little skiffs made of birch-bark, narrow and closed at both ends, like the crest of a morion (ancient helmet); the body is like a large hollow cradle; they are eight or ten feet long; moreover, so capacious that a single one of them will hold an entire household of five or six persons, with all their dogs, sacks, skins, kettles, and other heavy baggage. And the best part of it is, that they can land wherever they like, which we cannot do with our shallops or sailing boats; for the most heavily-loaded canoe can draw only a half a foot of water, and unloaded it is so light that you can easily pick it up and carry it away with your left hand; so rapidly sculled, that, without any effort in good weather, you can make thirty or forty miles a day; nevertheless, we scarcely see these savages posting along at this rate, for their days are all nothing but pastime. They are never in a hurry.”

Their war canoe was of a heaier build, and capable of carrying as many as twenty-four warriors. It was frequently made from the first log of a pine tree, shaped and hollowed by the use of fire, and with stone axes and adzes. When finished by polishing, they were, in utility, almost as good as their birch-bark brothers, only much heavier. By means of the canoes much of the travel and transportation duing the summer months was carried on. In their handling of a canoe they were remarkably clever. The portage, from one river or lake to another, was simply marvelous. In the winter time, when river and lake were one glistening sheet of ice – in addition to their snowshoes, a sledge called by them a “train” was drawn by dogs, or else by hand.

Train
The train was a primitive conveyance for winter use, and was adapted by the early settlers from the rude contivance employed by the Indians; and, with many variations and elaborations, is still in use throught Canada. The form of “train” which is perhaps most like the conyeyances referred to in our text, is thus described by Warburton Pike, in his “Barren Ground of Northern Canada,” (London, 1892) p.90: “we used the ordinary travelling sleigh of the north; two smooth pieces of birch, some seven feet in length, with the front ends curled completely over and joined togther with cross slats secured with babiche (strips of moose-hide) having a total width of sixteen inches.”

The “tobaggan,” so often used for sport in both Canada and the United States, is another form of “train” and is but a smaller and more ornamental style of the “cariole” used in the far north; the latter, drawn by dogs, consists of a thin board, fifteen or twenty inches wide, and ten feet long, turned up at one end in semi-cirular form. A light box, lined with fur robes or blankets, is attached to this board, in which the passenger sits.

MOCCASINS
This shoe is especially an accessory of travel it belongs to the road. In all countries where mere protection of the foot was was the motive, those substances were

[38] chosen that were most abundant and from which, in short time, new shoes could be constructed. In Ontario this class of footwear goes by the generic name of moccasin from an Algonquin work having a similar sound.

Moccasins have their dispersion in those area of North America where the great mammals were in abundance, and where the ground was adapted to their usage. The people were ever on the move. In the Canadian region where the caribou was the prevailing mammal and no good thick hide could be found for soles, the shoe was cut from a single piece.

The land of the buffalo and of the elk, because of the quality of the hide and the exigncies of region occupation and climate, had another set of types.

On arriving in the cactus country the Indian had to guard his feet and his legs as wee, and found in the ample fold of an entire deer skin for each foot, and a thick sole were turned up in front, the protection he needed. The patch of leather on the Mexican sandle lacing is for the same end. In point of fact there were and are three principal classes of kinds of mocassing:

1. The Athapascan type, a soft gaiter coming up well on the ankle, made of a single piece with decorated tonque in front, lapels of flannel and buckskin over the lacing behind, and the gaiter top. Found in Canada and on the west coast.
2. The low, much decorated slipper moccasin of the plains of the United States east of the Rockies, with endless tribal varieties.
3. The boot, with long top to wrap about the limbs.